


Good Luck

by starlies



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mutual Pining, Secret Santa, and eliwood is a little silly, background lynhec who didnt see that coming, ninian is a happy bean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9114205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlies/pseuds/starlies
Summary: In which Eliwood and Ninian have bad luck at school, but good luck with each other. (secret santa 2016!)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aestheticisms (R_Vienna)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/gifts).



> Happy New Year! o(^▽^)o 
> 
> It's a little later than I wanted to post it but ~ I finished my Secret Santa gift for Angie! She is such a talented writer omg, I love her fics (but have never commented bc I'm shy... I'm going to improve on that in 2017!). When I saw I got her and I realized who she was I was like. woah. I really... look up to her writing so I was a little worried going into this but! I did it! Please enjoy my little gift fic TuT
> 
> She mentioned Eliwood/Ninian and Ninian/happiness so here it is, the sappy modern au where everyone is happy and no one is sad and the two of them are just awkward kids in love. I used their supports as a basis for it, I just wanted it to be cute and happy for them ~

The color guard uniforms for the band show this year were absolutely hideous: some sort of single-shouldered asymmetric camouflage-print green dress, paired with bright blue (also camouflage-print) tights, and completed with brown shoes. Eliwood had heard too many times the same joke of _can you believe they let the color guard go around topless_? And perhaps that was the only reason he didn’t like them. Not because they were particularly ugly, but because he heard too much about them being ugly.

However, the unfortunate-looking outfit wasn’t enough to diminish Ninian’s beauty in the least bit.

Eliwood could see her from the fifty-yard line, even when she was standing at the far end of the bleachers in the crowd that was the band. With seven minutes until halftime, the band was filing out of the stands, and there she was – a head of silky blue hair that shimmered like ice as it bounced against her back. Her figure was nimble and graceful as she made her way to the field, and Eliwood couldn’t take his eyes off her for a second.

He was transfixed.

Unfortunately, that was what cost him, because in the moment he spent staring at Ninian, the referee blew the whistle, Lowen hiked him the ball, and Eliwood barely caught it and registered what was happening before the opposing defensive end sacked him into the next century.

 

* * *

 

Sophomore year, when she moved to Lycia High, they had chemistry together and became friends over a failed baking soda volcano. Junior year, chemistry became physics, and they laughed together over how their mouse trap car couldn’t move more than two inches, and he realized he liked her as more than a friend.

Now they were both seniors in their second year of physics together, and still, not a single one of their labs had gone as it was supposed to.

Nor had he found the courage to ask her out.

“Eliwood…” Ninian said, looking to him across a lab report (unsurprisingly, their homemade boat ended up being an homage to the Titanic). “Is your arm okay? What happened?”

He looked down to the cast covering his right arm and smiled pitifully. It was the Monday after the fateful Friday night game, and he could barely hold a pencil, so Ninian was doing most of the report for him. She didn’t know that she – or Eliwood’s crush on her, anyway – was the cause of their current situation. “It was at the football game. I got tackled, and I fell on my arm awkwardly, and… I fractured it.”

“That Bern player practically ripped his titties off,” Hector interjected from the lab table next to them. Eliwood blushed. Even though he and Lyn were absolutely frantic when Eliwood was rushed off the field, Hector didn’t miss an opportunity to tease him about it now that his weekend in and out of doctor appointments was over.

He forced a laugh at the same time he heard Lyn kick Hector in the shin to make him shut up. “Ha… It’s healing now, though. The doctor said I can take off the cast in time for homecoming, though they probably won’t let me play yet.”

“That’s good,” Ninian said, and the gentle smile on her lips and in her auburn eyes was enough to make Eliwood’s heart melt. “I was really worried. They stopped the game for a long time, and I really hoped… um…” She stopped.

“What is it?”

Ninian’s face was rosy-red and her eyes were glued to the diagram on her paper. “I was afraid it was you who was hurt… so I’m really happy to see that you’re recovering now.”

“Oh…” Eliwood replied. “Thank you, um…” God, what did he say now? She was so cute. She was so so so cute and pretty and kind and he didn’t want to worry her like he did. “I appreciate that.”

Nope. He ruined it. That was awkward.

Hector coughed loudly, and this time Lyn didn’t kick him, but hissed loudly to _leave Eliwood alone._

“Oh! Well, um, I think I finished the calculations!” Ninian said with a smile, obviously trying to shake off the romantic tension between them. “So I’ll turn in our papers.” And with that, she scooped the lab reports off the table and walked across the room.

Eliwood cut Hector a glare when Ninian wasn’t looking. Of course, there was no use trying to lie to his friends, so Hector and Lyn both knew the real reason he stopped paying attention mid-game.

Hector’s response was in the form of a smug grin. _Ask her out,_ he mouthed.

But even though half the school was aware of the awkward romantic situation between Ninian and him, neither of them seemed capable of making the first move.

 

* * *

 

“Eliwood, how long has it been since you’ve had a crush on her?” Lyn asked, a pizza crust dangling from her fingers. She’d finished cross-country training at the same time football practice ended for Hector and Eliwood (though Eliwood did little more than watch and help with water today), and so the three of them decided to share dinner at Eliwood’s house afterward.

He sighed into his cup of soda. “A year now…”

“And you still haven’t told her? I mean… it’s pretty obvious she likes you back.”

“It’s… it’s hard!” Eliwood stuttered. “I mean, I _want_ to, but I want to do it right. I want to make her happy. She deserves someone who can whisk her off her feet and make her feel… pretty…”

“Oh god,” said Hector. “You’re in deep, loverboy.”

“I know. If only more people in the world were so romantic,” Lyn added as a passive-aggressive jab at her own boyfriend. “Anyways, why don’t you ask her to homecoming? It will be like in the movies – she’ll love it!”

Eliwood considered it for a moment. “Okay. I’ll…” He looked at the woven bracelet on Lyn’s wrist and smirked. “I’ll ask her tomorrow morning.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Ninian waited for him in physics class wearing a loose, navy blue kimono blouse over a white shirt. She looked beautiful, the way her long hair spilled over her shoulders like a waterfall, the way she smelled like roses and vanilla, the way her warm eyes sparkled at Eliwood when he took the empty seat beside her…

And so he completely forgot what he was doing when he saw her.

“Hi, Eliwood,” she greeted. “How are you?”

“Y-your smile is pretty,” Eliwood blurted out, and immediately turned red in embarrassment. “I mean to say! Um, you look very nice today, I mean, I’m doing well. Thank you.”

“That’s good,” Ninian replied simply.

Mentally, Eliwood slapped himself. The more he fell in love with her, the harder it was to talk to her without making himself look stupid… case in point, he still couldn’t use his right arm.

“…What’s that in your hand? A bracelet? I’ve never seen you wear that before.”

Eliwood looked at the bracelet he was holding and remembered what he was doing. “Oh! This!” he stammered. “This is for you, actually. Here.” Ninian let him take her hand, and he slipped it on her wrist: a hand-made bead bracelet.

“A friendship bracelet?” Ninian asked, and pulled up her hand to read the black-and-white alphabet beads Eliwood had strung on there the night before with Lyn’s help. “’H-O-M-E-’… oh… ‘homecoming?’”

A bright blush crossed Eliwood’s cheeks. “I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked at Eliwood, at the bracelet, at Eliwood, at the bracelet, and he wondered if she was ever going to reply or if she thought the proposal via bracelet was lame and not charming at all. However, she replied with a grin and a nod of her head. “Yes!”

“Really?”

Ninian laughed, and it sounded like the chimes of glass bells. “Yes, Eliwood, you’re the only person I want to go with. I was hoping you would ask me sometime.”

“Thank you…” He exhaled heavily, as if he’d been holding his breath all morning in anticipation of her response. “I’m glad… I’m glad we can go together,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the homecoming dance is not the focus of today’s lecture,” interrupted Marcus, their teacher. They hadn’t noticed, but the bell for class already rang, and all of their classmates were gawking at Eliwood’s homecoming-proposal. “If I could have your attention, we will be moving onto Archimedes’ principle today…”

But Eliwood barely paid any attention as Marcus droned on, his gaze falling on the bracelet on Ninian’s wrist that she wouldn’t take off for the next six weeks.

 

* * *

 

 

Ninian was beginning to think she’d been stood up.

No… she trusted Eliwood. He was kind and thoughtful and he wouldn’t leave her without saying anything… even though he _had_ promised to pick her up by six, and now it was seven…

Nils came out onto the front porch with her with his piccolo still in hand; he’d decided he’d rather stay home and practice for band auditions rather than go to a dance. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking out at the empty street in front of them. “Eliwood sure is late…”

Ninian sighed through her nose. “I’m sure… he’ll call, or something…” she replied, even though she’d texted him five times in the past hour with no response.

So she sat on the porch for another half hour, thumbing at the end of her skirt, twisting her bracelet around on her wrist, combing her fingers through her hair, until a familiar truck pulled up in front of her house. It wasn’t Eliwood’s, but Hector’s, she realized. When it parked, Lyn jumped down from the passenger’s side, clad in her own emerald-colored dress.

Ninian stood to meet her and dusted off her skirt. “Lyn? Why are you here?”

“Eliwood…” she began. Her eyes were dark, heavy, and stressed. “He fell down the stairs. And because of that, he broke his arm again."

 

* * *

 

“That dumbass…” Hector grumbled, but by the way he gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles turned white, Ninian knew he was worried out of his mind.

As was she. She knew what it was like to get injured like that – she’d twisted her ankle last year, but at least she didn’t break it. Twice. The second time being just as it was healed.

Hector didn’t give two (“don’t swear in front of Ninian, she’s innocent” “okay fine, _mom_ ”) hoots about the speed limit, so they got to the emergency room within minutes. On the way there, Lyn explained all she knew – that she and Hector were waiting on Eliwood, called him seventeen times with no response, then gave up on that and called his dad. He explained the circumstances of his son’s disappearance to them: Eliwood tripped on his own feet going down the stairs and landed on the arm that he’d just gotten out of a cast yesterday. To be safe, they took him to the ER, and sure enough, he’d broken it again.

He was waiting to get another cast put on when they got to the hospital. Ninian nearly fainted when she saw him in the waiting room, dressed in his nicest white button-up, his arm red and swollen and in a sling.

“Lyn, Hector… Ninian!” He’d known they were coming after Lyn’s phone call to his parents, but at the sight of his date, his face paled. “I’m so sorry… I really let you down.”

She forced a smile, even though his apology stuck a sob in her throat. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“But it is… I know how much you like dancing, and I really wanted to take you, but I kind of…” He nodded to his limp arm. “…screwed up, to say the least. I really am sorry, and I want to make it up to you somehow.”

And so she started crying.

Eliwood immediately stood up from his seat and brought his good hand to Ninian’s face to wipe away her tears. “No, no, Ninian, please don’t cry… I’m sorry…”

“I told you, it’s not your fault,” she managed. Her tears were not the consequence of anger or sadness, really. It was relief. After stressing over him ever since he failed to pick her up on time, then seeing him there – a mostly-healthy boy with messy red hair and clear blue eyes and freckled cheeks – she couldn’t do much but cry.

Such was the fate of a girl in love.

She leaned into his hand on her cheek. “You just worried me when I didn’t hear from you, when you were late, and I… I was scared and… you really suck, Eliwood.”

He chuckled as she began to dry her tears. “I know. And I’ll do anything to make it up to you. Anything.”

“…A date, then.”

“Hm?”

Her voice was too quiet, she realized. “Take me on a date,” she told him. She felt a little bad for telling him he sucked, but after waiting a year for him to make a move, she didn’t care too much. “We can see a movie, or go to the park, or something… I just want to go out.”

Eliwood’s ocean-blue eyes widened, then relaxed into a grin. “I’ll make that happen, then. For you,” he promised. “I’ll do anything to see you smile.”

 

* * *

 

He would do anything to see Ninian smile. Ninian was tentative movements, Ninian was quiet voices, Ninian was feather-light and reserved and shy, but her smile was the most vibrant, most beautiful thing in the world. And every time Eliwood caught a glimpse of it, he felt as if his heart would leap out of his chest and into the sun.

 

* * *

 

 

So Eliwood and Ninian finally went on their first date, in which they went to see whatever Disney princess movie just came out and Eliwood accidentally spilled their popcorn because he tried to grab it with only his left hand and dropped it. Ninian only laughed it off. He made up for it by taking her to the arcade afterward, where they wasted twenty dollars on the dance game (which Ninian was ridiculously skilled at, and Eliwood ridiculously not).

This lead to their second date, when they spent Halloween together at the amusement park. And then a third date, when he took her for coffee after school on the first day the temperature dropped below forty degrees. And then a fourth date, when he hung out at her house all of one Saturday when she was sick with a cold. By the time Eliwood was going to ask her out on a fifth date, it was nearly winter break, and the entire school was shaking with anticipation for Christmas.

They were working on a marble roller coaster in physics at the time. “Hopefully, this is the project that actually _works…_ ” Ninian mumbled as she stood on top of a lab table to tape pipe insulation to the ceiling and establish the starting point of their roller coaster. 

Eliwood watched her from the ground. She wore a long blouse with leggings today, highlighting her defined dancer’s muscles as she stretched to reach the ceiling tiles, hanging up the pipe as if she was hanging stars in the sky. “Be careful,” he reminded. “Can you get it? I could go up and-”

“No, thank you,” she quipped. “You just got out of a cast _again,_ so you’re… you’re under ‘ground arrest’. You have to stay on the floor.”

She was really cute. How did he forget for even five seconds how cute she was.

Eliwood rested his chin on his palm, propped up by his elbow on the table, and gazed up at her. “Ninian,” he said, “do you want to go see the lights this weekend?”

“The Christmas lights? Where?”

“I was thinking about Elmine Park. We could walk together and look at them.”

With her hair pulled up in a bun, Eliwood could see her ears turn pink. “I’d love to,” she replied, but in the process missed where she was taping the pipe insulation and dropped the entire six-foot length on the floor.

Eliwood picked it up and handed it back to her with a sheepish grin. “It’s a date, then.”

 

* * *

 

Ninian bundled up that Saturday in a thick woolen scarf, earmuffs, and mittens – of course, the day she and Eliwood decided to go see the lights in the park would turn out to be the coldest day of the year thus far. But Eliwood held her hand in his as he guided her through the winding stone paths of Elmine Park’s Christmas display, and his warmth helped her ignore the freezing temperatures around her.

They stopped walking when they found a nice place to sit for a while; a bench beneath an old, big tree with broad, sweeping branches that hung over them, wrapped in diamond-white lights. “Ninian?” Her name manifested as a puff of smoke in the air. “I know it’s a little early, but I wanted to give you your Christmas present, since we’re here.”

“Aw, that’s so nice of you.” She smiled, half-hidden by her scarf. “I don’t mind that it’s early.”

Eliwood’s nose was already red from the cold, and his freckled cheeks soon matched it in color. “But… close your eyes,” he said.

How cliché of him – but it was things like that that caused her to find him charming. “Okay,” she agreed, and shut her eyes while he reached around her head to attach something.

“It’s… maybe a little weird because of the scarf, but you can open your eyes now.” And she did. “Look.”

It was a necklace he’d clasped around her neck. Eliwood held the pendant in his hand for her to see – a glacier blue, teardrop-shaped gem on a silver chain. It looked like a crystal of ice and snow in the way the lights above sparkled off it. “Ah, Eliwood, that’s so pretty! I love it.”

“They call it a Dragon’s Stone,” he explained. “When I saw it, and I learned that, I thought of you.”

“…I remind you of dragons?”

“Yeah, you’re like a dragon.” But by the way Eliwood’s eyes darted around nervously, she could tell he hadn’t explained himself well. “Because… because they’re magical and powerful, and I think… you’re enchanting like that, Ninian. Like a dragon.”

She laughed at him. “My smile, right? You say that a lot.”

“Not just that,” he said. “It’s everything about you that’s… beautiful.”

And so she looked at him, meeting his cerulean eyes with hers, and smiled again. She’d be able to smile for a hundred, for a thousand years with him.

She was in love.

“Ninian, will you be my girlfriend?”

“Hm?” She didn’t miss a beat, soft-spoken but genuine, and said, “I was under the impression I already was.”

They held the moment just a little longer – in the milky light under the trees, lost in each other – before they burst out laughing together.

 

* * *

 

New Year’s came, and Hector invited all his friends to his house, since his older brother finally caved and let him have a party. Eliwood, of course, brought his girlfriend Ninian as his date.

They had fun, playing games and making jokes all evening until midnight approached and everyone gathered around in the living room for the countdown. “You know, Ninian,” Eliwood said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, “they say a kiss on the new year brings good luck.” Because with all the random mishaps they’d endured that year, they could use it, he thought.

The countdown reached five, and Ninian looked at him through her eyelashes, a smile dancing on her lips. “Do you want to?”

And so at the strike of one, cheers erupted around them, and he kissed her.


End file.
